This paper investigates four topics. (1) It examines the different roles played by the propensity score (the probability of selection into treatment) in matching, instrumental variable, and control function methods. (2) It contrasts the roles of exclusion restrictions in matching and selection...

One current educational reform seeks to reward the "value added" by teachers and schools based on the average change in pupil test scores over time. In this paper, we outline the conditions under which the average change in scores is sufficient to rank schools in terms of value added. A key...

This note derives simply computed closed-form expressions for the average treatment effect, the effect of treatment on the treated, the local average treatment effect, and the marginal treatment effect in a latent-variable framework for both normal and nonnormal models. Asymptotic standard...

This paper explores issues that arise in the evaluation of social programs using experimental data in the frequently encountered case where some of the experimental treatment group members drop out of the program prior to receiving treatment. We begin with the standard estimator for this case...

This paper considers two problems that arise in determining the role of cognitive ability in explaining the level of and change in the rate of return to schooling. The first problem is that ability and schooling are so strongly dependent that it is not possible, over a wide range of variation in...

This paper examines the properties of instrumental variables (IV) applied to models with essential heterogeneity, that is, models where responses to interventions are heterogeneous and agents adopt treatments (participate in programs) with at least partial knowledge of their idiosyncratic...

This paper applies a unified methodology to multiple data sets to estimate both the levels and trends in U.S. high school graduation rates. We establish that (a) the true rate is substantially lower than widely used measures, (b) it peaked in the early 1970s, © majority-minority differentials...